Andi is not abused, she’s just her mothers child. Avoidance as the primary survival method. My kid freaking out over being a new mum avoid the situation by having the kid adopted out. My kid lied about the baby being dead, buy an urn to avoid having to deal with the mess. She went along with Andi telling the Smiths Amanda was dead because it was the path of least resistance.

A path of least resistance that left so many consequences for Andi to deal with alone. Andi may have been wrong for lying but her mother is just as guilty for helping keep the lie going. Parents are supposed to teach their children what’s acceptable and what isn’t. The difference between right and wrong.

This is avoidance on an unhealthy level. Avoidance that hurt not just Andi but Todd and his family as well. All the blame gets heaped on Andi because she was the one who lied about Amanda being dead. Anger is justified and it’s an EXTREMELY big wrong on Andi’s part; she knows that and is taking all the brunt of the blame because she KNOWS she screwed up. But that doesn’t make Patricia less guilty.

Am I saying Andi’s mother is/was abusive? No, I’m not. We, as the readers, have not seen enough to know for certain if that was the case. We’re only going by Andi’s behaviors and her interactions with her mother to come up with that conclusion. All I’m saying is that Patricia is very much equally in the wrong for not only telling her daughter to put her child up for adoption without even discussing it with Todd’s family first to come up with a solution that benefitted BOTH parties but also with helping Andi to keep up the lie by buying an urn, which sealed the lie in.

Patricia was doing it because she thought they were in her daughter’s best interests; Andi was doing it because she was scared. In that regard, they’re BOTH in the wrong and have both made very unwise decisions.

That’s what I was going to point out, as well. Gaslighting like crazy.
Ma convinced Andi to give up the baby for adoption, convinced her to tell Todd the baby died…. what had to be done to flesh out that story was done, and now Ma is doing her best to convince Andi it was all Andi’s doing, all her idea.

P: “It’s okay. I love you.”
A: “I can’t do this!”
P: “It’s okay.”
A: “I don’t want a baby! But Todd loves the baby…”
P: “Don’t worry about Todd. We can sign the papers, they’ll take the baby away, and it’ll go to a loving home.” To doctor: “She’s signing the papers. We’re giving her up.”
T: “Sorry, I got stuck at work, then there was traffic… are you okay? Is the baby okay?”
A: “… the baby died.”

Nowhere do I see anything of Patricia pushing her to lie to him, just a ‘this is your body and your life and you need to do what’s best for you’ bit. Pretty sure that the lie was 100% Andi. But yeah, everything she did afterwards that was not “she’s scared, let me tell you what actually happened” is totally on her.

Also, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall another flashback with words where Andi says ‘She… she’s not with us.’ That gave me the impression she was just waffling around the issue of giving her up, trying to work up the nerve to actually say it, but the evasive words she used have a certain connotation to them so that Todd assumed she meant ‘dead’, and she was too scared to tell him what actually happened so she just went with it. If anyone knows which page that is I wouldn’t mind checking it out again.

But here’s something else to consider. Patricia preyed on Andi at a time when she was about as mentally and emotionally vulnerable as you can get. Instead of telling her that it’ll be okay that she’s got a lot of love and support – from her, Todd, and Todd’s family – she goes right to the option that gets rid of the baby. Instead of helping her think things through and letting her know that she’s got a loving support network, Patricia’s go-to was “Forget Todd, get rid of the baby.” I really, really don’t think Andi would have gone through with the adoption without her mother pressuring her into it. Andi *knew* she was doing the wrong thing the entire time if you look at her face in the picture where the doctor takes Amanda away. Then Todd finally shows up and she can’t face the truth, so she tells Todd the baby died. Notice though, that once Patricia got her way she’s no where to be found? That last scene is Andi on her own to face Todd, even though her mother had told her not to worry about him or to forget about him.

She got her way, and left Andi to cope with the aftermath as best she could. Alone.

While I can respect that Andi’s mother stood by her during the pregnancy and was very clear that ‘Andi’s body= Andi’s choice = Andi had the control and final say in what went on with her body’. I do not respect or agree with the way she manipulated the situation and essentially pushed her desires onto a vulnerable 17 yr old.

The Smiths wouldn’t have abandoned her or Todd. Todd’s parents were clearly willing and able to help them both out. Why Andi’s mother ‘neglected’ to advocate that or at least entertain that as an option says more about Andi’s mother in that situation than Andi in my opinion.

Clearly there was some projection going on and Andi’s mother using that whole ‘I did what I thought was best for you’ as an excuses to hide from and not face the real issue that situation had brought up for her.

Andi isn’t blameless, and she’s hurt and alienated a lot of people as a result but I’m thinking she’s moved passed the whole “I need to clear my conscience/absolve my personal guilt” thing and is thinking of Amanda’s feelings and emotional needs more so than her own.

She invaded the Smith’s Christmas for Amanda, because Amanda needs to be around people who care about her and she needs her mom and dad both around as much as possible. She’s calling her mother and talking to her and wanting to introduce Amanda to her so Amanda could have the opportunity to connect her other grandma.

These things Andi has been doing the last few strips have had nothing to do with herself and everything to do with Amanda.

I don’t know where the Smiths were when Andi got pregnant but I’m betting Andi is wishing she had listened/heard them over the advice her mother pushed on her and I hope she is able to acknowledge that realization out loud. Andi’s mom never supported her or her options/choices at the time and it is very clear that she still doesn’t.

It would’ve been a good idea if Andi waited for Todd to discuss it. Cuz I think he’d understand if she had been able to voice her discomfort of being a mom then and that she thought she wasn’t going to be able to be one.

I’m kinda curious as to how that would’ve gone. I think I’m being a bit too optimistic in saying it’d be good.

“It” is either Amanda or the situation that Andi put herself in? The one where she told Todd’s family that Amanda’s dead?

WE don’t know. And honestly,she’s told Andi she doesn’t wanna see Amanda. Bringing her around would’ve probably been tense anyway. It’s probably for the best that she say no so that Amanda isn’t exposed to more tension. I think that’d hurt her more than this. Cuz this is bad. But imagine all that tension on Christmas Day. DX

No way this is anything but emotionally abusive. She’s simultaneously guilt tripping Andi for letting Patricia “help” her in the past AND is now refusing to help her by doing something as simple as meeting her own flesh and blood.

Patricia is a self-serving coward who only “helped” Andi reach the outcome that would cause HER the least trouble. Now that Andi’s trying to do the right thing, Patricia is blaming both her action AND her inaction on her, AND blaming Andi for cutting contact with her to boot.

I just got a problem with this attitude that just because someone shares blood they have to care for each other. I think at this point Andi should just sever all ties with Patricia and cut her out of her life, looks like both of them would be happier that way.

True, but Andi wants Amanda in her life. So… If Patricia doesn’t, she must realize that she may not have ANDI in her life either and I think she’s trying to push Andi into giving Amanda up by choosing her mom over her daughter…

As others have said, it’s cold, earflaps, and… I honestly think it’s so there’s a little bit of physical distance so the hurtful words Andi knows is coming are not whispered right into her ears. Not to mention, it is so very easy to get your shoulders up around your ears when you’re on the phone, holding the phone in front of you can help be a reminder to force those shoulders down.

Is this a new phrase people are saying? I’ve never seem it before and all of a sudden three people have said it on this page. It reminds me of “throwing shade” and “salty.” Who comes up with this stuff?!?

Gaslighting is an older term. From the victorian times actually. It originally referred to the art of slowly driving someone crazy by messing with their perceptions. The name itself is derived from messing with the gas light settings so they don’t burn quite as brightly. It also involved getting the exact same shoes just a few sizes too small so they think they’re imagining their feet being squished.

Aaaand now I’m worried. Amanda will probably be relieved that her mom tried to help bring the family together for her sake, but she knows there was something Andi said a long time ago. She’s already been told Todd didn’t come to get her because he thought she died. Right now she’s probably just feeling down about what she’s hearing from her maternal grandmother, but she’s this much closer to solving the puzzle on why the Smiths were so angry with her mom.
Ugh, I really was trying to give Patricia a chance, but she isn’t worth it if she really doesn’t care how the Smiths were affected by this, and she made that clear a while ago. I can’t say what would have been a good move immediately after Andi said Amanda died, but if she was so “supportive” then, why not now? Why not when Amanda is back in their lives? And why does she think she can keep a semblance of regular contact with Andi but avoid Amanda in the process? That seems a little unreasonable to ask of Andi.

Oh please Patricia, you are just as guilty, if not moreso than Andi is in all this. You did nothing when Andi gave up Amanda and then lied about her being dead. By trying to play the bystander, you enabled the whole situation. If you had encouraged Andi to talk things over with Todd instead, none of this ever would have happened. Heck, at least Andi shows some remorse and is trying to make up for what she did, so if anything Patricia, YOU are even MORE guilty than Andi in all this.

Patricia is an abuser. She told Andi that Andi (and Andi’s sister?) ruined her life and that she didn’t want Andi to have to go through the same experience. I am an abuse survivor and letting your kids know that they’re unwanted, and worse, that they ruined your life by being born, is emotional abuse.

She is abusing Andi now. From personal experience, parents who abuse continue the abuse through adulthood. I also understand Andi’s lack of recognition that she is being abused. I knew that being hit, slapped, kicked, thrown, and being chased by my father with a gun was abuse, but I had no idea that my parent’s words were abusive until my therapist had me write down all their words and then their unspoken messages, too. I was forty and was raising my small daughter. I realized that I had never, no would I ever, behave or speak that way to anyone.

I divorced my family. I am sporadically in touch with my younger brother, but have to walk on eggshells. He had a series of strokes and I do feel love for him. More importantly, I have a good relationship with my niece and going through the motions with her dad helps. She is going through her own healing.

One last thing is Andi’s sister. I believe she is much more like her mom and identifies with her. The sister was absolutely using Jesse, living with her, not working, and buying expensive designer shoe on Jesse’s money.

I have a lot of empathy for Andi. She’s growing, even with no support. I can totally understand why she’s indecisive. She is catching h..l from her mom no matter what she does. I’m sure Patricia has done that for Andi’s whole life.

I am very impressed with this story and the development of characters, Dave. Please keep up the great work.

Just a quick clarification, Jessie’s ex-girlfriend is NOT Andi’s sister, but I know why you think that.

When she appeared briefly during the shoe-fight (I think her name was Alexis? It’s been a long time and I haven’t even thought about her in ages) I mentioned in the commentary for one of those strips that at a past point in the backstory construction she was going to be Andi’s sister. But that is not true in the final version/established canon (Otherwise Andi would have [probably followed her down the hallway when she stormed past in a huff). I chose not to go that route to avoid “hey wow all you people are secretly related to each other, funny how that works out” tropes.

Although now I’m reminded how much I miss working with Jessie. Been too long since we saw the whole school-centric half of the cast. :\

The dialogue on this page made people think she could be Andi’s sister:https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie121/
Plus she kind of looks like her and her necklace looks like something Andi would have a tattoo of.

Speaking of the school-centric half of the cast, what happened to the little kid whose parents went missing? He seems to have disappeared and a few months in the comic must have passed since that happened. Should we assume that his parents came back off-screen to get him?

If Patricia wants nothing to do with Amanda, tthat is her choice but she needs to realize that means she also wants nothing to do with Andi. Acting as if she’s hurt or shocked that Andi hasn’t contacted her when she’s made it clear she doesn’t even want to acknowledge Amanda as blood, is vile and disgusting.

She doesn’t HAVE to want to be a part of Amanda’s life, but that means she also cannot be a part of Andi’s life.

I don’t think those are the only two options. They may well be for Andi, but in general, I think it is possible to have contact with one member of the family without another, although of course the contact will be less frequent.

For example, if my nephew had stolen from me or broken something of mine deliberately, and I chose to not allow that nephew to continue to come over to my house, I could still be friends with my brother (his father). And while I have to be cordial to my nephews’ mom, I don’t have to be her friend to be close friends with all my nephews and nieces. There are separate ties between people, and while they do intertwine a bit, they don’t need to be that extreme. (Think about how it works in marriage with in-laws — you don’t need to like everyone to become part of the whole family, and there may be people you simply want to avoid, which is okay.)

Good LORD. Patricia says she did what she did to HELP Andi? As the actual adult in the whole mess, Patricia was the one in a position to mitigate it from the start, and what she did sure as hell didn’t help. Andi gets a bit of consideration for being a scared kid. Patricia gets none for not nipping this in the bud.

Looks like I was right in the whole “at least there’s a family who WANTS Amanda” around to help the poor girl deal with this. If she admits what she heard. And if she doesn’t blame Selkie for her own (understandable) advice to go after Andi.

sheesh patricia, self-centered much? its not about easing someone´s conscience but about giving a little girl the family christmas she deserves.
…..but on the matter of conscience, i think its quite remarkable – though not in a good way – that pat seems to have no regretes or remorse for her actions. at all. shows what kind of person she truly is…..only helping andi, my a#!!

Really I want to know what in heaven’s name Patricia’s issue is. Ultimately Andi’s caring for Amanda, not her. Is she afraid Andi’s going to flake out and she’d be stuck caring for Amanda? For one thing that’s selfish as balls. and second it’s five or ten levels of unreasonably paranoid considering the nonsense Andi went through in order to reclaim Amanda. Really it’s my rule of thumb in life- I want to hear Patricia’s side of the story before I unleash fury. at this point in time I’d just say Andi and Amanda are better off without her. Merry Christmas, here’s your present- your family’s all gone, but It’s not like you wanted one anyway right?

Pretty sure she’s playing the Miss-I’m-Not-To-Blame-For-Any-Of-This role… Not to blame for Todd knocking her daughter up because she likely did not approve of their relationship. Not to blame for Andi going through with the pregnancy. Not responsible for Andi’s final decision to get rid of her. Not responsible for the lie, the urn, the fact that her daughter likely spent more time with her after the birth in order to avoid the Smiths and Todd in particular and Patricia probably enjoyed this quite a bit because she likely fed Andi more “advice” and cemented that, for whatever reason Andi chose to believe her, the Smiths would NOT approve of the lie and therefore would not approve of Amanda in their lives… Yeah. I can go on but I’ll stop.

Okay I gotta put in my two cents. Patricia and Andi are both self-centered cowards but Andi more so than her mom. Going off everything we’ve seen Patricia suggested giving up the baby because she wasn’t ready. It was Andi who said Amanda was dead to cover up her lies. Since Andi is her daughter Patricia went along with it and ended up having to buy an urn.

I don’t think Patricia is actually afraid of the Smiths….she’s afraid of facing Amanda. Afraid of facing the granddaughter she was never able to see.

I’m going to judge it the other way. Andi was only seventeen and had just gone through childbirth. Patricia had neither of those excuses. She was Andi’s mother, the supposedly responsible adult. Nothing was stopping her from saying, “No, Andi’s just all stressed out. The baby didn’t die. She’s been given up for adoption.”

Nothing, that is, except her calculation that if the Smiths found out, they were all too likely to seek out and adopt Amanda themselves. That would undo her plan for cutting Andi off from all contact with this unwanted infant.

I don’t buy that she feels guilty. Her coping mechanism when guilt threatens is to cast the blame on others and make them feel guilty.

I really hope some day Dave has time to delve into Andi’s backstory. Her childhood, prior to Todd and his family being part of her life.

For all Patricia’s not-so-subtle digs about Andi ruining her life because she had her young, I see her as the type of parent that controls their child through emotional manipulation. Once Andi was around Todd’s family – and particularly if they were going to be a large part of helping raise Amanda – that control began to slip.

Patricia got that “vile urn” because she knew how incredibly hard it would be for Andi to ever tell the truth after that.

I feel Patricia resents how accepting the Smiths are and purposefully took the baby card out of the picture in order to keep Andi more with her than with the Smiths… But of course in a self-denial sort of way.

Or, perhaps given Andi’s jibe during the conversation over tea many strips back, Patricia resents having Andi so young and decided to live through her daughter vicariously and manipulate her to give up her baby. Not saying Andi did not initially want a Amanda but she has admitted the matter eating her up for years so she’s regretted it a LOT, purportedly. Just saying that, if Andi is correct and Patricia regretted having Andi and felt her own life “ruined” by a kid, then that was fuel for her motives. She’s still wrong, but that would be a reason behind it. Patricia’s not evil. Just selfish and/or bitter. Neither is better tho.

Okay, I have to ask… who the freak has an important, secret conversation, that may ruin someones life (the kids in this example, and the moms), on SPEAKER PHONE. Yes, she stepped outside, but she was JUST OUTSIDE. It’s not like she got in the car and drove away, or even walked away to the next block! Ignoring the fact you knows her daughter is insecure and snoopy, she still has the conversation on SPEAKER PHONE right outside! The window wouldn’t have to even be open! The daughter could of not even been snooping, and would have heard the SPEAKER PHONE conversation through the glass or door! Honestly, of the dumb things that she has done, this may be next to the top, the top being giving up the daughter (which makes more sense when you think about Patricia influence).

Also, how did the mom not hear the window opening, or see the increase in light?

And the arguments that it was ‘cold’ are silly. Even in below 0 weather, such an important, relationship breaking conversation can be handled another way including just putting the tip of the phone beneath the ear muffs of the hat! (or getting in the car! Not even driving away…)